For your attention

1. Opting out of the same-sex marriage debate is no option – Owen Strachan, assistant professor of Christian theology and church history at Boyce College in Louisville, Ky., writes in a column republished by Baptist Press there is no opt-out for Christians on the issue of same-sex marriage. He says, “Get ready to feel lonely, Christian, and to be unliked. It's unavoidable for ethical, Gospel-driven evangelicals who know that they cannot sit this one out.”

2. Porn invades the public square – Joe Carter, an editor for The Gospel Coalition, reviews on TGC’s blog a news article about the growing reality of people viewing pornography in public venues and thereby invading the privacy of those who are seeking to avoid it. He writes, “In an age when so many Christian men have succumbed, and when Christian women brag on Facebook about reading Fifty Shades of Grey, why are we shocked to find nonbelievers bringing filth into the public square?”

3. The page that changed her life – In an ongoing series titled “The page that changed my life” on The Gospel Coalition blog, Gloria Furman, a pastor’s wife in Dubai, shares how a paragraph in the book A Gospel Primer changed hers.

4.The redefinition of religious liberty – Ross Douthat, a conservative columnist for The New York Times, explains how Western elites are minimizing true religious freedom – with the Chick-fil-A controversy and Obama administration’s contraceptive/abortion mandate two of the examples.

5. The gospel is at stake in a Mississippi Baptist church – Russell Moore, theology dean at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes eloquently about the gospel repercussions of a black couple’s wedding being moved from a Mississippi Baptist church’s building because of the complaints of some white members. This is an important statement about the centrality of the gospel in the life of a church.

Mondays are for music: 'Come Christians Join to Sing'

St. Andrews Hymns is the name of a collection of musicians out of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Midland, Ga. The group recently released its first album, "Safely Home," which consists of old hymns to new tunes. This video of "Come Christians Join to Sing" was filmed during the group's recording session in January on a Georgia farm. (HT: Tim Challies)

Preparing for corporate worship: The joy of the gospel

One of the many joyous passages in the New Testament comes in Acts 13. Paul and Barnabas are in Pisidian Antioch a week after Paul preached the gospel in the synagogue there. God granted a great response, and they return to the synagogue the next week to proclaim the same truth again. Nearly the whole city gathers, but the Jews – apparently the leaders at least – oppose the gospel message and blaspheme. Luke describes what happens next beginning in verse 46:

Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, ‘I have placed You as a light for the Gentiles, that You may bring salvation to the end of the earth.’” When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was being spread through the whole region. (Acts 13:46-49)

Wow! You can picture the Gentiles’ exuberant, overwhelming joy at the realization the gospel is for them as well – Jesus is the Savior for the world, not just Israel. That gospel never becomes outdated or ineffective. It is simple, yet profound. Children can grasp it, while intellectuals stumble over it. It is all of God’s grace. The simplicity of the gospel is expressed in a song by Bob Kauflin and Drew Jones of Sovereign Grace Ministries we as a church have sung in recent months. It is simply “The Gospel Song:”

Holy God in love became
Perfect Man to bear my blame;
On the cross He took my sin;
By His death I live again.

We will rejoice in the gospel of Jesus again this Sunday. We will gather because it is true. We will gather because He is the only Savior. We will gather because He has saved us, sinners undeserving but sinners rescued. May we all come prepared to glorify God for His grace, exalt Christ our Redeemer, remind each other and ourselves of the gospel, and humble ourselves before Him and with one another.

Giving God glory for striking the One who gave Him glory

One of the more attention-grabbing passages in the Bible can be found near the close of Acts 12. King Herod has decided to persecute members of the church, according to the first verse of the chapter. He has James, one of the 12 and the brother of the apostle John, executed, and he has Peter arrested and imprisoned with the apparent intention of executing him as well. God rescues Peter. Displeased with Peter’s escape, Herod seemingly has the prison guards through whom the angel of the Lord delivered Peter led away to execution before he leaves Judea for Caesarea.

Verses 20-23 explain what happens next in Herod’s life:

Now he was very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon; and with one accord they came to him, and having won over Blastus the king’s chamberlain, they were asking for peace, because their country was fed by the king’s country. On an appointed day Herod, having put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum and began delivering an address to them. The people kept crying out, “The voice of a god and not of a man!” And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died.

It is difficult to imagine many things more revolting than someone being “eaten by worms.” The phrase at the heart of this passage, however, precedes that description of the nature of Herod’s death: “[A]n angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory.” As God’s Word clearly demonstrates, Herod deserved to die for this. He not only set out to destroy God’s elect, but -- in an even more grievous action -- he embraced the people’s apparently insincere praises declaring him to be a god. We read this passage and have reason to think this of Herod: “He got what he deserved.”

Yet, as I read this in my daily Bible reading yesterday, it struck me that Herod’s fate is what mine should be. It is what yours should be as well. His refusal to give God the glory may differ in degree from yours and mine, but it doesn’t differ in substance. We have all sought our own glory, and we still do so even as those upon whom He has showered His saving grace. The reason we don’t face such judgment for every time we refuse to give Him glory, every time we seek our own glory, every time we think proudly of ourselves is because Someone Else has been struck in our place.

The prophet wrote in Isaiah 53 about this substitutionary event hundreds of years before it occurred. We now know the Suffering Servant described in that passage is Jesus of Nazareth. Here are portions of that chapter that depict how the One was struck for the many:

But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. . . . By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? . . . But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief. . . . Yet he Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.

May we continuously give God the glory for bringing glory to Himself by striking the One who sought His glory above all instead of striking those who refused to give Him glory.

Something to think about: 'Missions exists because worship doesn't'

Here are the opening paragraphs of the first chapter of Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions by John Piper:

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal in missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Psalm 97:1). “Let the peoples praise [T]hee, O God; let all the peoples praise [T]hee! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Psalm 67:3-4).

But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!”, who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord. . . . I will be glad and exult in [T]hee, I will sing praise to [T]hy name, O Most High” (Psalm 104:34; 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.

If the pursuit of God’s glory is not ordered above the pursuit of man’s good in the affections of the heart and the priorities of the church, man will not be well served and God will not be duly honored. I am not pleading for a diminishing of missions but for a magnifying of God. When the flame of worship burns with the heat of God’s true worth, the light of missions will shine to the most remote peoples on earth. And I long for that day to come!

Mondays are for music: Trip Lee & the gospel in 2 minutes

A solid group of rap musicians -- featuring artists such as Lecrae, Trip Lee and Shai Linne -- is creating a body of work intended to glorify God and proclaim the gospel of Jesus. These artists' lyrics are God-centered, theologically strong, gospel-focused and Christ exalting.

The video below features Trip Lee. I don't know if what he does here is a song per se. It doesn't have a title, at least in this video. Yet, it provides an idea of what he and others are doing in verse to make Christ known. Here, he explains the gospel in less than two minutes during an interview with Desiring God.

Preparing for corporate worship: Tim Challies to preach

“For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Rom. 8:14-15). We will gather this Sunday as fellow adoptees. As I understand it, Paul uses the word “sons” here to refer not to males but to Christians who have an inheritance like sons at this time. We are all adopted, and yet we all have an inheritance. We have all the riches by virtue of a Sovereign God choosing to adopt us into His family and become a tenderly loving and dear Father to us. From what I understand, “Abba” was the name a small child in this part of the world called his father. It would be like us saying, “Daddy.” May we recognize as we meet together this Sunday we were all spiritual orphans who were rescued by the eternal Father, and may we give Him the glory in adoration, thanksgiving, humble confession of sin, and intercession for one another.

In corporate worship this Sunday, we will have the privilege of hearing Tim Challies preach. His family and he plan to worship with us Sunday, and he was kind enough to agree to preach.

Tim is associate pastor of Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, an author of three books, co-founder of a Christian publishing company, editor of a book review website for Christians, and a greatly respected blogger. In fact, his blog is one of the most influential on the web for evangelical Christians. I have checked on it regularly, usually daily, in recent years. His spiritual discernment is a great aid to many. You may access his blog here.